“Will You Take Less For This?”

On Saturday I participated in our community yard sale.  For 2 weeks I went through closets, drawers and storage bins pulling out all the stuff that at some point I really didn’t think I could live without and just HAD to have.  It was going to revolutionize, glamorize or symbolize my life.  Now I was willing to take 50 cents for it just to get it gone.

I wasn’t forced to buy any of that stuff (I resisted using the word crap). I chose to buy those things because I thought each thing would some how improve or enhance my life in some way.  Saturday that $30 improvement went for $4.

So as I was packing the left over stuff, I started thinking, “Did God choose me OR did I choose God?”  (This is not meant to be a discussion on predestination or free-will!)  I CHOSE to buy that slightly too tall lamp with a shade that acts as a magnet to every piece of fur, dust or lint within a 20 mile radius.  But that’s just a lamp.  What about the God of the Universe?

This I know for an absolute fact:  God loves me.  Period.  He sent His Son to die for me!   And as a result, He commands me to love Him.  It’s not a choice, it’s a command.

Not a choice.

A command.

“Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’”

Matt 22:37

A command.

My choice came in choosing Him.  He is the one thing that improves and enhances my life.

Completely.

Yet, I confess, there are times when that choice is tough.  When I’m willing to take less. When the command to love Him feels like a burden.  Yes, I just wrote that.  It’s in those terrible, dark times when I’m placing more value on WHAT He gives me, not WHO He gave me.

My God, who loves me so stinkin’ much that He allowed His Son to die on a cross for me, deserves so much more than my lousy choices and crappy (there I said it) attitudes.  He deserves so much more than my willingness to take less.  He gave me the GREATEST gift of all.  Am I seriously crazy enough to choose less than that?

I do not want to live without God.  I can’t, actually.  I choose God.  And that choice demands that I love God.  And I choose to love Him regardless of whether or not He give me what I want. Because He gave me Who I need.